Day 24: Ah, a day off from blogging. Today was another Sea Day, and as you’ve read the minutiae of several of those so far my only comment is that today was more of the same. 🙂

Day 25: The sun continues to beat me in the race to rise first in the morning. The days are starting earlier now that we are south of the equator, 5:18a today. The above sunrise shot was taken from within the safety of Hamburger Paradise, one of the two outside but glassed-in eating establishments onboard (the Pizzeria being the other). The seas began to be a bit choppy during the night and I already feel the strong wind while on the protected Deck 11 so I’m not going up to be blasted on the Deck 12 walking track.

My newest exercise regimen involves an hour on the treadmill if I can’t walk outside then stair climbing. I’m training for Jacob’s Ladder, a 699 step climb in St. Helena. I’m hoping to slog up it my 2nd day there and with some conditioning under my belt I hopefully won’t incapacitate myself for the rest of my visit. 699 steps equals approximately 5x climbing the 7 flights of stairs near my cabin. I’ve done 4x the last 2 days in addition to the countless flights I clock the rest of the day. I’ll ratchet it up to 5x then 6x after these next couple sightseeing days.

Tomorrow we arrive in Mauritius and we’ll have 2 days there. I originally planned to rent a car again but I’ve rethought that based on my day driving in the Seychelles. Mauritius is a much larger island and therefore many more hours would be spent behind the wheel and I’m not sure I want to bother with that. I also have a substantial credit on board, partly as a sign-up bonus, partly as a refund for an Egyptian tour that was cancelled. Mulling it over all morning I approached the Excursions Desk to see what tours the ship offered.

Problem solved. I’m going to do an Island Tour Day 2 and a beach/snorkeling trip Day 1. No stress, no planning, and I can take photos to my heart’s content without worrying about oncoming traffic 😉

That ate up half my credit but what about the other half? I heard that the MSC signup credit couldn’t be cashed out at the end of the cruise, it had to be used onboard so I thought to outsmart the system. Today the Casino was running a special at the roulette table: 50 cent chips instead of $1. So, I took out $200 worth of chips from my account, played for 20 minutes, then quit when I was up. I cashed out with $210 in cold hard euros! Boom, credit spent.

P.S. Last night’s post (Daily Planner slipped under door while this party animal is asleep) included a note that due to such poor internet reception this trip we’ll be receiving a 25% non refundable onboard credit. Another trip to the roulette wheel?